


we can't live forever (so we should stick together)

by genevievereads



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Internal Conflict, M/M, Pining, Secret Crush, Slow Burn, florida boy stop lying to yourself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29878824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genevievereads/pseuds/genevievereads
Summary: What starts off as an arranged friendship between Dream and George, made to appease their fanbase, spirals into traitorous desire all too quickly. Lines between infuriation and infatuation blur and collide, until Dream and George are left in a beautiful, horrific mess of their own making.--or in which two careless fools fall for the person they hate most.“You don’t need to leave on my behalf,” George says, with a rueful laugh.And Dream doesn’t know if he could ever hate George more.That stupid fucking voice, now unwillingly imprinted and preserved in his mind, his eyelids, his ears. Like scarlet lipstick stamping a pale cheek; like ebony brushstrokes against a blank canvas; like ash falling on snow. Marking and ruining him.George has a dangerous voice.From now on, Dream knows to keep his distance.(He hopes he’ll remember).
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 37





	we can't live forever (so we should stick together)

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone !! i really hope you enjoy this, and also that you’re in for the long haul-- this is going to be pretty slowburn.  
> the work title and chapter title are both from the song “fuck it and whatever” by the echo friendly (which i definitely recommend listening to, even if it’s just for the ambience of the story).  
> also, in case it’s unclear, the short passage in the beginning is set apart from the rest of the chapter. it’s dream’s own personal reflection-- timeline wise, it will occur around ¾ of the way into the entire work.  
> thank you all for reading!

If Dream were to trace George like a map to find the path that somehow, with inexplicable, yet painful beauty, led them here, he would have begun with this night. 

From that night, he blames everyone and everything. He blames the shadows that appeared to him with beckoning, inviting fingers. He blames his own hands, grasping and failing to cup handfuls of rain. He blames the creaky wooden slats in his room, for mimicking the wicked whisper of a voice he now knows and recognizes better than his own. 

Most of all he blames George. Because even after all this, he still hates him more than anyone. Him and his scarlet, lying mouth. 

That filthy fucking mouth. Dream doesn’t know what’s more dangerous: the treacherous, faithless curve of his lips, or the curses and prayers that slip from them. 

If it hadn’t been for George’s carelessly pretty mouth, their promises may have remained intact.

But they were lightweight fools, who laughed and loved and fell too easily. They’d never really stood a chance-- in some way, this all felt a little inevitable. Like they’d been fucked from the very beginning. There’s nothing left to do now, but remember who they might’ve been. 

So, Dream remembers. He remembers the _pat pat pat_ of rain against his windowsill, and flickering and dying lightbulbs, and laughter, and a glowing screen, and a velvet sky, and the beginning, crooning lyrics of a song.

And George. 

Of course he fucking remembers George. 

________________________________________________

_  
that night: five months and too many promises earlier_

“You’re dogwater! You’re actual fucking dogwater!” Quackity gleefully exclaims, spectating Dream’s avatar as he narrowly misses the edge of a trapdoor, and plunges to a swift death. His shout is accompanied by a loud, ceremonious bang, and off-beat chanting from Karl and Sapnap. Dream winces. He was initially appreciative when his friends offered to stay up on a late night Discord call with him, but that gratitude is starting to ebb away. Fast. 

That fucking trapdoor’s going to be the end of him. Three nearly flawless runs in a row, just to get fucked over by the very last jump. The MCC subreddit already begrudges him enough; he’s not exactly eager to make an ass out of himself tomorrow. Dream sighs, his avatar flickering back onto his computer screen, and begins the course again. He promises himself just a few more runs, before he finally retires for the night (an empty, unfulfilled promise of course-- he’s been saying that for the last few hours). 

“Oh, yeah? Well, Quackity, what’s your best time on Parkour Warrior?” he retorts. A low jibe, considering he’s not sure Quackity has ever completed the entire course, but it’s late and he’s cranky. 

“Oh, fuck off. That’s just--that’s just…” Quackity sputters, leaning closer to his mic, so his audio crackles and briefly cuts out. Sapnap and Karl _ooh_ and _ahh_ in the background, happy to pass around the hot seat as long as it doesn’t end up underneath their asses. “Okay, you know what? Just because I don’t spend my entire life on some stupid block game, just because I actually get pussy and have a fucking _life_ , doesn’t mean you have the right to say that. Besides-- you should feel _honored_ right now. You’re talking to someone who’s placed in the top forty of all MCC champions,” Quackity finishes triumphantly. 

“Wow, top forty. That must have been hard,” Dream says flatly, voice dripping with sarcasm that he makes no effort to conceal. He pauses for a moment, lining up his position to prepare for the final trapdoor jump. 

“Actually-- he’s top thirty eight,” Karl says. 

“Thank you Karl, thank you!” Quackity yells appreciatively, and once again, Dream winces. He doesn’t know if Quackity either isn’t aware, or simply doesn’t care that it’s the middle of the fucking night, and his volume well exceeds any kind of social decorum. “I’m even better than I remembered!” he continues proudly. “You hear that, Dream? Are you _jealous_?”

“Ha. I could beat that in my sleep. _With_ my hands tied behind my back,” Dream says. Before Quackity can retaliate, Dream pushes forward, tapping the spacebar, and then promptly shifting. _Finally. Kiss my ass, MCC subreddit._ He leans back in his chair, deciding to take a momentary break from practice.

“We could actually try that out tomorrow, Dream. I have some rope you can use,” Sapnap offers. 

Before Dream can respond, Quackity yells, “You have _rope?_ Just lying around? Dude, that’s a little kinky.” 

Karl giggles. “Sapnap…” he trills, drawing out each syllable of his name with ringing cadence. “Caught in 4k!” 

Now it’s Sapnap’s turn to glow a flustered red. “Oh, fuck off. It’s-- it’s gardening rope,” he attempts, though his words trip and falter. Dream laughs at how quickly his friend’s former image, all pride, cheek, and coyness, has dissolved into a crimson flush. 

“Gardening rope? You’re in fucking Florida. All there is are palm trees,” Quackity says. 

“Seems a little sus to me,” Karl chimes in. 

Sapnap slips back into his usual self-assurance, as he lowly, almost amorously, says, “No, Quackity, you’re right. You’re completely right. It’s definitely the rope I used to tie your mom’s hands to the bedpost while I fucked her raw.” 

“Sapnap!” Quackity howls, while the Discord call erupts into explosive laughter. “What the fuck, man?” Quackity sits in terse silence, before he too, lets out a giggle, shortly accompanied by another loud, resigned groan. 

Between hoarse, laughed-out breaths, and lingering chuckles, Dream says, “Yeah, I think I’d prefer for you _not_ to use that rope.” 

“But it’s convenient! We won’t even need to use glue. It’s already sticky. With my _cum_ ,” Sapnap says. 

“Dude! You’re so fucking gross. Chill out, man,” Quackity begs, but his composure is quickly lost by another consuming wave of laughter. 

A smile spills out onto Dream’s face. Moments like these, where conversation and laughter is poured and passed like glasses of sweet wine, are fleeting and brief. They arrive in sudden, fast-moving flares, and leave even sooner, but Dream doesn’t hesitate to bottle up these passing minutes. He’ll get drunk on his own easy mirth later, on the fluid laughter of his friends, and the yellow glow from his computer screen. He’s actually already starting to feel a little light-headed. Two twin scarlet patches bloom on his cheeks, and strings of his hair are sticky, plastered to his forehead with sweat. 

Opening his window might do him some good. He feels like he’s choking on the hot air trapped inside his room, as well as his own syrupy delirium. Letting his friends’ conversation wash over him, Dream leans back in his chair and slows his breath. They’ve moved on to talking about an ongoing Twitter war between KSI and Tommy, so Dream deems it perfectly fine to temporarily abandon the conversation. He stands up with a yawn, and crosses over to the window on the left side of his room, his footfalls dragging and uneven. If his friends notice his sudden departure, they don’t say a word.

Dream props himself up against the loose, flapping paneling, and leans over to unlatch the hinges of his window. He sticks himself out over the sill, careful to balance his palms beneath him (he can only imagine the twitter trends if his demise was met by toppling out of a fucking window), and bows his head out into the night. Dream shivers at the weight of air against his spine: it feels like the night is collectively sucking in a bated breath. He figures it may rain later tonight. He wouldn’t mind that; hopefully it would cleanse away the dirt and muck from today. 

It’s easy to lose himself in a dark sky. His friends' voices have faded off into background noise, so he can only barely catch the lilt and rise of muffled conversation. Dream sighs. It’s been a long fucking day. A _series_ of long fucking days. Ever since his videos first started gaining traction, and he started pressing on that gas pedal to relentlessly _go go go_ , it’s felt like a trampling procession of exhausting days, that have slowly leeched into nighttime, before swallowing those hours whole as well. He’d be a fool to complain. But he’d also be a fool to say that he wasn’t slowly burning out. His composure never slips up: he arms himself with charisma, and curving smirks, bent and sharp like half-moons. He never wants anyone to find out how frantically he’s paddling underwater, and how hard it is to remain afloat. He’ll whisper those secrets to an elusive night, but nobody else.

But he’s going to have to reel himself in. No matter how spent he feels. No matter if he has no more energy to exert, or smirking confidence to feign. Because tomorrow is going to be one of the most draining days of Dream’s fucking life, yet he knows he has to perform his role perfectly. Ever since MCC teams were first announced, he’s been dreading the looming date. But from the twitter trends, team fanart, and Wattpad fanfiction, it’s pretty easy to deduce that his fans feel differently. MCC’s twitter account had been teasing the announcement of ‘a team guaranteed to leave you speechless,’ with promises of ‘interactions between fan favorite creators’ for a tense stretch of days. After hundreds of theory threads, subtweets, and team analyses, the Purple Pandas finally dropped.

Sapnap, Karl Jacobs, Dream, and GeorgeNotFound. 

In a matter of minutes, all four of their names were trending, accompanied by keyboard smashes, expletives, and all caps exclamations. 

Dream can’t deny that, skill-wise, it’s a solid team. For the past few championships, Sapnap has consistently placed in the top ten, especially excelling at PVP game modes. Karl has been working his ass off for the past couple of weeks, and is well prepared to compete-- subconsciously, Dream also hopes that Sapnap’s presence might push Karl to perform even better. Dream has picked up on the subtle ways Karl’s gameplay changes under Sapnap’s observation; he’s never commented on it, and doesn’t know what exactly about Sapnap propels Karl to perform better, but for the team’s sake, he’s glad. And as for himself-- well, Dream’s never been one to fake humility. He’s well aware that he’s pretty fucking good at the game. 

The dynamic between the three of them is comfortable and familiar, forged through hours of late night calls and early morning editing. Even though he knows it’s a cheesy sentiment, Karl and Sapnap (Quackity as well, even though Dream hasn’t known Alex for very long), are home to him: it’s comforting to return to a place known and worn. 

George is anything but familiar. 

Pretty boy George, with a smile made of ruby stained glass, and a cold complexion that still manages to burn. Well. Personal biases aside, and Dream can admit that George knows how to wield a diamond sword. Dream supposes that he’s adept at the game. At least he won’t be dead weight. But besides his occasional adequacy at a video game, Dream can’t bring himself to give a shit about anything else that George might have going for him. 

Their fans have been begging for shared content from the two of them: YouTube uploads, an invitation to the Dream SMP, even a simple response tweet. But besides following each other back on Twitter, Dream and George haven’t shared a single public interaction; despite all that, their fans have remained persistent. Attaching screenshots of a tanned, callused hand clasping a smaller hand, a tracery of pale blue veins visible under the pallor, with the caption: _remind you of anyone???_ Subscriber and follower races spurred entirely by their fanbase, with #TeamDream or #TeamGeorge crawling their way onto the trending page nearly once a month. When Dream tweeted out the United Kingdom flag (only intended as a subtweet to Tommy, who had tweeted out an American flag), his notifications were immediately flooded by people asking him if he was visiting George in the UK. 

He hates the role he’s been thrust into. He’s been unwillingly bound to George, and in some sick, twisted way, it’s almost like they _belong_ to each other now. Or at least their fame is partially shared, a perverse reliance on the other. Dream fucking hates that. He hates it, he hates it, he hates it. 

He hates it almost as equally, and almost as fervidly as he hates the person he’s been bound to. 

If it was someone else, anybody else, Dream could bear to tolerate it. But _George_ , who thanks his donos with placid, performed gratitude, who wears vacant Prince Charming smiles, who has a forehead that crinkles whenever he shows disdain, who listens to shitty, horrible, pretentious music, who hates Dream just as strongly as Dream hates him, who-- 

Dream pauses.

A softly uttered hello, more of a question than a greeting, echoes from his computer. 

An infuriating accent that Dream thinks about more than he should.

Dream’s words settle in his stomach like stones. 

He’s been in a trance for the past couple minutes, allowing the chatter of his friends to blend into humming white noise. But now his reverie is fading, and he feels much too aware of everything: heavy air falling around his neck like a noose, the burning flush of his cheeks, his fingernails biting into his forearms, and leaving tracks of crimson crescent moons. And that stupid fucking voice, now reverberating in his head like the chime of a clock. 

Dream slowly backs away from his perch by the window, nearly banging his head on the half-open blinds. There it is again; muffled and hard to detect from across the room, but the rounded vowels and curt consonants definitely don’t match his friends’ intonations. A voice that feels familiar to Dream, like it’s been plucked and stolen from his memories. 

Was the universe fucking with him? Did Dream somehow wish him into existence? 

(Except it wasn’t wishing. Whatever Dream had been doing, it wasn’t anywhere close to wishing. If anything, it was cursing. Cursing George and his stupid fucking voice out of his life. It was coincidental. It was bad luck. It was _not_ wishing.) 

He crosses the room in hazy strides, settling back into-- and nearly slipping out of-- his chair. Dream had neglected to close Minecraft; the screen is still multi-colored and flashing, his avatar patiently waiting for him to return. The harsh reds and greens hurt his eyes. He absentmindedly presses a few keys on his computer, trying to orient himself. 

Conversation slowly fades back into his ears.

“What the fuck? What the _fuck?_ That’s the most bullshit idea for a tweet I’ve ever heard-- if you actually tweet that, I’ll ratio your ass to Mars, you--”

“Hello?” Dream says, intervening before Quackity can issue more threats. He winces at how tentative he sounds; it’s a shadow of his normal inflection. He roughly clears his throat, just to have something to do. 

His friends explode with greetings and loud exclamations of ‘welcome back!’ It all dulls into background noise, as Dream waits to hear one voice. 

“Oh, hi Dream,” George says, in a maddening accent, that curls around the syllables of his own name like the edges of burning paper. Dream would punch him if he could. 

“Hi George,” he replies, his voice dispassionate and even. He doesn’t linger on George’s name, doesn’t let it melt on his tongue like hard candy, doesn’t offer any snide, biting remarks. 

One of the things Dream hates most about George is the easy way he feigns niceties. Dream is confident that George would celebrate if Dream’s face somehow ended up smeared on the tires of a four-wheeler-- after all, how could he not hate his guts, when they’re natural rivals? He sometimes thinks he’s caught it, when a donation brings up Dream’s name: a brief flash of _something_ , a glint in his eyes separate from civility and forced smiles, a betrayal of a silvery cool demeanor. But in the next passing moments, George’s expression would right itself, and he would move on without answering. It would be so much easier if they dropped the dance, if they told each other they hated one another face to face. But if George wants to fake civility, Dream won’t be the one to let up the ruse. He can play along. 

“Dream? Did you leave us again?” Karl asks, with a fake, exaggerated pout. 

“I’m here, I’m here, sorry, I just zoned out for a few seconds,” Dream quickly replies. He leaves his statement curt and brief, so his friends won’t prompt and prod him about why he’s been so distracted lately. 

(Not that Dream is hiding anything. He just isn’t in the mood to inflate George’s ego more so.) 

“What were you talking about?” Dream continues. His fingers are a flurry on the keyboard, absently switching from key to key, trying to keep his mind occupied elsewhere. Anywhere but fucking here. 

“I was just saying that we invited George into the call, so we could all get some MCC practice in. You know, some quality team bonding,” Karl finishes unsurely, so it sounds like he’s posing a question, rather than an assertion or explanation. 

So, that’s why George is here? 

In that case, Dream plans on individually murdering each one of them the second this call ends. 

“If that’s alright with you,” George says calmly. 

Dream’s eyes flit up to his computer screen in surprise. He hadn’t expected to hear such abrupt, steely challenge in George’s voice. Like cigarette butts buried beneath snow, Dream picks up on George’s threat, even when hidden under pretenses of politeness. Dream can’t help feeling a little out of breath. He didn’t know George had it in him. 

He thinks about how stupidly presumptuous and arrogant George probably looks right now. The left side of his mouth pinched with satisfaction; spindly fingers toying with the strings of his hoodie; eyes narrowed and waiting. 

Shit. Waiting. How long has George been expecting a response for? 

“No, no, yeah, you can stay. No problem with me,” Dream says, cringing at how long he must’ve been cluelessly silent for. 

Sapnap starts giggling, and it takes all of Dream’s willpower not to march into the room three doors over, and smack the smug smirk of his roommate’s face. 

“Dream, are we boring you? Do you want to hang out with your other, cooler friends?” Karl jokes. 

“Yeah, dude, where the fuck have you been for the past few minutes? What, are you just too distracted by George’s sexy, sexy voice? I mean, I didn’t know British accents were your thing, but no judgement, no judgement,” Quackity says, and even though Dream knows he’s just trying to drive a wedge through the tension, he’s never wanted to slap him more. 

George stiffly laughs, his voice strained and thin, before breaking out into an impromptu coughing fit. Dream manages to bark out a chuckle, but it sounds nothing like him. 

Well. Dream never would have guessed that the first front he and George would be united on is agreement over how painfully awkward this conversation is going. 

Dream lets the passing minutes be taken over with Sapnap, Karl, and Quackity’s aimless chatter. He’s glad that they’re filling the empty space; he’s never known silence to be so suffocating. Dream fiddles with the cord of his headset, winding it around his index finger until the blood flow constricts, before slowly unraveling the wire. He repeats the process again and again, leaving his fingers marked with pink stripes. If he just focuses on loosening and tightening the cord of his headset, he’s able to escape into a hundred different rooms, all separate from the call he’s in now.

He’s able to forget that George also hasn’t spoken a word this entire conversation. 

_Fuck._ Maybe it’s not so easy to ignore that. 

Even though George hasn’t said anything, his presence is still, irritably and reluctantly, felt by Dream. Maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s imagining the heavy inhalations and exhalations (annoyingly heavy-- doesn’t George know how to breathe with his fucking mouth shut?) coming from George’s mic. 

He hopes he is.

After nearly ten minutes tick past, Dream decides he can’t fucking take it anymore. He stretches his arms over his head (an unnoticed gesture, considering his webcam isn’t on, but Dream thinks it’s a nice effect), and fakes a long, exaggerated yawn. “Shit. I’m tired guys. I might head off.”

“Dream!” Karl whines. “We were supposed to sleep call! Who’s going to hype me up for MCC now?” 

“One of your fiancéescan take care of that,” Dream replies. 

“Nah, no way am I doing that, he’s too motherfucking clingy. But Dream, if you back out of our sleep call, I’ll let everyone know what a massive fucking pussy you are,” Quackity threatens. Dream’s resolve doesn’t waver: his hand is already hovering over the ‘leave call’ option. “Wait, Sapnap. You _live_ with Dream. Can’t you just-- I don’t know-- go into his room, and force him to join the fucking sleep call?” 

“No, dude, Dream fucking locks his room-- don’t know why. Means we can’t get our nightly cuddles,” Sapnap dramatically sighs.

“Oh, come on now. Shut up, Sapnap. And all of you, stop being such idiots. I’m tired, I want to _sleep_ ,” Dream says. 

“Come on, dude! You were the one who set up the fucking sleep call,” Quackity groans, banging his fists on his keyboard in mock frustration. 

Dream chuckles, preparing to click away from Discord. “Well,” he begins, before another voice intrudes. 

“You don’t need to leave on my behalf,” George says, with a rueful laugh. 

And Dream doesn’t know if he could ever hate George more.

That stupid fucking voice, now unwillingly imprinted and preserved in his mind, his eyelids, his ears. Like scarlet lipstick stamping a pale cheek; like ebony brushstrokes against a blank canvas; like ash falling on snow. Marking and ruining him. 

George has a dangerous voice.

From now on, Dream knows to keep his distance. 

(He hopes he’ll remember).

The call has fallen silent, only briefly broken and punctuated by Quackity coughing, or Karl emitting a nervous giggle. Dream realizes they’re all waiting for him to respond to George. 

Before he opens his mouth, Dream tries to imagine George, and his self-satisfied, bastard grin. His usually soft, pink-lipped, open-mouthed smile turned smug and mean, haughtily pinched at the corners. 

It makes it even easier to hate him.

“George, believe it or not, but not _everything_ is about you,” he says lightly. Dream hopes that even through his laughter, George can pick up on the steel in his words. Dream can play at being dangerous as well. He shrugs his shoulders saying, “You know, I’m actually not a member of the GeorgeNotFound fan club.” 

George laughs airily, and Dream tries not to punch something, because of course he’s fucking perfected faking indifference. “Could’ve fooled me,” George says, which leaves Dream stammering and swallowing his words. 

“I’m a member of the GeorgeNotFound fan club! Only signed up because we got free clout goggles in our goody bags,” Karl intervenes, and Dream has never felt so fucking grateful for his friend. 

“Did you also get that rip off Supreme merch? Because then I might need to join,” Quackity says, and everyone in the call is easily laughing again. 

Dream can almost forget that George had ever said anything. 

Almost. 

“Alright, well-- I’m going to head out. See you all later!” Dream says, with forced nonchalance. 

“See you tomorrow, Dream,” George murmurs with dangerous softness, and oh my fucking god, Dream needs to leave this call before he combusts with anger. 

“See you tomorrow, George,” Dream manages to breathe, before finally shutting the Discord window. Karl’s words ring out of his mic (“ _hey, don’t I get a ‘see you tomorrow?’”_ ), before the room falls into a smothering silence. 

His room’s quiet, but Dream’s head has never been so numbingly loud.

He slams his palms against his desk, just so he can sate the paralyzing quietness in the room. The stinging is different than what he anticipated: it burns, but it feels deserved, rightful. Dream would do it again if he wasn’t worried about Sapnap overhearing. He would scream as well, until his throat was raw and burning, but at that point, Sapnap might think he was a madman. 

It infuriates Dream, how he allows for George to crawl under his skin, and bother him as he always fucking manages to. Maybe it’s not even purposeful on George’s behalf; maybe it’s just something about George’s far-flung, stretched thin demeanor that ignites something in Dream. Something wretched. 

It’s not like Dream ever set out with the intent to hate George. _George_ was the one who fucking entangled them in this mess, and started hating Dream before he even had incentive or reason to (sure, Dream had been a little cocky, but he’d also been young and charismatic, and no matter what George thinks, arrogance always sells). 

Dream had been fucking excited to talk to George for the first time. The boy with the smirking wit, deep laugh lines, crinkly eyes, and easy, fast-flowing comebacks: something compulsive in Dream urged him to try and make friends with George. 

Of course, that all fell very short. 

If his fantasies of George had been in line with his actual character, wouldn’t their first exchanged words be different? Wouldn’t George have been warm and welcoming, instead of bitter and cold? Wouldn’t they be friends by now? 

The point is that Dream fucking tried. He fucking tried to make nice with George, and all of his efforts fell in miserable, pitiful vain. Dream had mistaken George’s poised smiles and feigned laughter for true warmth; if Dream can give George any credit, it’s that he does a good fucking job acting. After all, Dream had almost trusted that surface level prettiness. The true George was cold, staged, and lifeless. Even after George turned out to be a hollowed out husk of who Dream had thought he was, he still remained beautiful. Aggravatingly beautiful. If anything, that just served to make Dream angrier. It was unfair, that beautiful people got to go around and be so fucking _awful_. Even if it was a distant kind of beauty, like looking through frosted window panes or glazed over mirrors, it still taunted Dream. 

Dream’s interrupted by tapping on his windowsill. He looks up, grateful for the distraction and escape from his spiraling thoughts. 

It’s raining. 

It’s _raining._

So, his prediction was right. Dream laughs giddily-- and even if it sounds crazed and hysterical, it’s laughter, so Dream laughs again, just for the sake of feeling the corners of his lips turn up. The rain will help him wash away any persistent, unwanted images of George. 

Dream crosses his room in fast strides, leaning out his already open window, and letting droplets break across his cheeks, his nose, his lips. Even when the rain cracks like crystal globes across his upturned face, it still returns with trailing, wet fingers. It’s Florida, so the rain is warm and sticky, but Dream still delights in it. 

Dream opens his grasping hands to the night, cupping his fingers to gather handfuls of water. He wants to collect enough so that he can drink, and finally satiate the growing, unnamed thirst inside him. 

He lets the drops fall on his hands with all their ruined, failing grace. But no matter how far out he reaches his arms, or in what shape he cups his fingers, the rain always manages to tear through the cracks and gaps in his fingers. Sighing, he lets the water slip past his palms, and angle towards the ground. 

It’s okay that he can’t catch it; his hands aren’t meant for holding water.

Dream still falls a little bit in love with every droplet that shoots past him. 

He laughs and laughs and laughs, and doesn’t give a fuck if he sounds deranged or mad, because it’s raining, and for the first time in hours, he isn’t thinking about George. 

Well, fuck. 

Did that count as thinking about him? 

Fuck. 

His thoughts have, inevitably and regrettably, turned to George once more. And though he hates himself for it, now that George is on his mind, he can almost hear him calling out to Dream from somewhere out in the rainstorm. His voice accompanied by the slamming of rain against asphalt; his voice weaved through the clouds; his voice tapping Dream’s back, with hot, wet hands. 

What the _fuck_ is wrong with him?

Dream sighs. 

If anything, it’s George’s fault. For having such a sweet voice (because, yes, Dream can admit it-- however much he hates George, his voice intoxicates him), while still being so withdrawn and cold. 

When Dream had first seen photos of George, he’d thought that he’d looked a little like a fallen angel. There was something beautifully and horrifically distanced about him. Dream wasn’t religious, and hadn’t gone to church in years, but George’s smirk-- Dream imagined he smiled a little like Lucifer did, all sharp lines and sinful curves, before he had fallen from Heaven. 

Of course, that was all mere fantasy. George was disastrously and boringly mortal. He wasn’t ‘beautifully distanced:’ he was just an aloof, arrogant asshole. 

Still. Dream stays at the window.

He thinks about the rain. 

He thinks about angels. 

And he thinks about George. 

________________________________________________

It’s a long time before Dream is ready to move from his perch by the window. Time had stilled while he’d stayed out in the rain; Dream feels like he’d existed everywhere, all at once, an infinite number of spaces, but also nowhere at all.

It was nice, if not strange. 

Dream finally pulls back, droplets dripping from the lifts and tips of his face like hanging prose. He doesn’t need to see a mirror to know that he looks like a fucking mess. He sighs, dragging his fingers down the length of his face, leaving his fingers damp. What normal person sticks their head out into the rain for hours at a time? He pulls down the blinds, and closes the window, muffling the rain (compared to the torrent earlier, it’s soft-falling and slow, but nonetheless, still lingering). 

It’s late, too late, and tomorrow is already awful. The day will become significantly worse if Dream shows up to MCC running on no sleep, so no matter how fretful his dreams may be, it’s probably best to try to go to bed. 

He knows he should brush his teeth, and do something to his hair, now stringy and soaked, but he’s too fucking exhausted to give a damn. Dream pulls back his comforter, and promptly collapses into bed. Morning might bring him to regret his carelessness, but at least for now, it’s nice to make mistakes. 

Dream turns over, adjusting to the far left of his bed, and picks up his phone from where it rests on the nightstand. Mindlessly scrolling through Twitter often leads Dream to places he doesn’t want to end up, so he promises himself only a few minutes before he shuts off his phone. 

His timeline is almost entirely filled with speculations and predictions for MCC tomorrow, and fanart of various teams holding up golden trophies and metals; not exactly the escape he was seeking. Many, many people are supporting Dream’s team. Normally that would be comforting to Dream, but at the moment, all he feels is the weight of expectations, hundreds counting on and believing in him. 

_Why me_? he thinks. It’s pointless, but he still wonders. 

Finally he stops scrolling, his thumb landing on a tweet from a Spotify update account-- a Spotify update account for George. He can’t help his curiosity; Dream adjusts the grip on his phone, so he can read the full title. 

Huh. “Fuck It and Whatever” by The Echo-Friendly. 

He smiles at that. George, who makes such a presumptuous, overblown deal over never swearing in front of his audience, listening to a song with fuck in the title. Big fucking hypocrite. 

Dream tries to imagine the word fuck wrapped around George’s pretty, pristine tongue. In a poor rendition of George’s accent, Dream sounds it out in his head, imaging flaring lips and the soft click of a tongue. 

Okay. _Well_. Before going to bed, he definitely needs to expel all thoughts of George cursing (and forget the ways certain words may sound when enveloped in rounded British vowels). 

Dream hesitates, before making a fast decision, and opening up Spotify on his phone. He switches to a private listening session (no need to tempt or entertain his fans with any theories; he can’t forget that he has an update account tracking his own listening), and searches up The Echo-Friendly. He’s not surprised he’s never heard of them. Dream’s seen George’s Spotify update account before-- he only listens to weirdly random and obscure songs. Dream would bet a good deal of money that George just looked up some ‘Top 100 Indie Hipster Songs’ list, and is slowly filtering through the band titles. The pretentious motherfucker.

He grabs his earbuds from where they’re coiled on the nightstand, and plugs them into his phone, before sliding them in his ears. His fingers drift over the play button, twitching and hesitant. Dream has no idea why he’s afraid over starting a simple fucking song. It’s probably just some acoustic, bohemian, almond milk iced coffee bullshit. He really shouldn’t be making such a big deal over this. Calming the tremor in his hands (while simultaneously hating them for trembling in the first place), Dream presses play, and settles back into his pillow. 

_In this shitty, low-light basement…_

________________________________________________

The song flickers out, and Dream is left staring at nothing. 

He didn’t quite know what he’d been expecting. He certainly didn’t feel any profound epiphany. It’s nothing that Dream would ever pick to listen to himself: a little too hum-drum and folksy.

But. 

But Dream can’t help imagining George listening to this song as well, George, thousands of miles away from Dream, but hearing and feeling the same words Dream’s lips are tracing. Two quotation marks enclosing a haunting song lyric.

_(“And I know we can’t live forever/So we should stick together/I know that sounds heavy/But fuck it and whatever.”)_

Is George splayed out on his bed, letting the same words wash over him again and again? 

Dream doesn’t know. And he doesn’t _want_ to know.

(Or so he tells himself.)

And even though he hates himself, he queues the song. Over and over, until his finger has gone sore from pressing the button.

The song plays by and by. 

And moments before he finally falls asleep, Dream concludes this: the worst, most despicable thing George has ever done to Dream, is know him. 

This is the thing Dream hates George most for, and the thing he’s entirely unwilling to forgive. 

Because, however much he doesn’t want to admit it, he thinks of George. Constantly. 

Rarely does a passing thought go by that isn’t defiled with his fucking presence. It disgusts him. George has ransacked his mind, and branded it with smudged, charcoal fingertips, as if it were a mirror.

God. He’s so hopelessly fucked. 

Eventually, Dream closes his eyes and falls into a fitful rest. 

________________________________________________

He dreams of a name that passes through his lips like a fervent prayer. A name he won’t remember when he wakes up, but whose syllables unravel him.

He dreams of a boy with hands like china tea pots: porcelain and fair, a filigree of blue veins. 

He dreams of a boy with red powdered lips (after he touches the boy’s mouth, he presses the pads of his fingers to his own lips, so he can taste the crimson lies). 

He dreams of a boy with hair dark like raven feathers, that Dream ruffles and grabs tight onto, asking the boy to take them away, to _fly, fly, fly_. 

_Where?_ the boy asks.

 _Anywhere,_ Dream replies, _as long as you’re holding my hand._

In his dreams, he can sin without consequence.

In his dreams, they’re safe.

He whispers the name to the fair skinned, red lipped, dark haired boy, who nods in return. Who takes his hand. Who smiles, like he doesn’t even realize he’s setting Dream’s bones alight. Who starts running. Who Dream follows without question, and without looking back. 

_George._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you all for reading! :) comments and kudos are appreciated so very much. <33  
> i’m going to try and update this once a week (probably on saturdays), so i’ll be back soon!  
> here’s my twitter, if you want to be moots, or talk to me:  
> also, one last important thing-- red, white, and royal blue by casey mcquiston was a big inspiration for this work. they’re the reason i wanted to write a rivals to lovers story so bad. the book is also amazing, so if you have time, go check it out!  
> love you all, have a great day! :]


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